Ecos: La Brea

You have been spotted!
This Saturday, gallop along the new map's Coastal prairie, or stroll through the Redwood groves as a complex new horse skin. As seen during our panel at the La Brea-palooza...

Leopard Western Horse, a tier 4 skin priced at 3000 Tracks.

Something big is coming soon…

During our collab with La Brea Tar Pits & Museum, we officially announced the Columbian Mammoth as an upcoming playable in Ecos: La Brea! 🦣

This behemoth will function as a ecosystem engineer, as well as being 1 of 3 playables we are actively working on!

Summer Nights at the Tar Pits Join us for science, live music, hands-on activities, food trucks, and drinks at the Tar Bar—a perfect laid-back summer night at the Tar Pits!

Join us in celebrating Ecos with tomorrow’s Summer Nights event!

We are hosting a discussion panel to talk about the game.

For more information, check out the Page Museum website: tarpits.org/calendar/sum...

Ecos: La Brea is AT the La Brea Tar Pits!
Until Monday, July 21st, come play Ecos in person at the Page Museum in Los Angeles, CA.

A passing bison herd disturbs the stillness of the evening...

Ballona Creek is the primary waterway that carves its way through the Santa Monica basin. While today it flows as a concrete, channelized stream, during the last Ice Age it fed a vibrant riparian ecosystem. 🍃

A Western horse herd finds themselves in an unfamiliar new environment...

Redwood groves are a new plant community that will feature coastal redwood trees, western sword ferns, fungi, & more plants to come.🌲

This is one of many images highlighting an upcoming map update! 📸

Dire Wolf - Colossal A verifiable, essential apex predator who left behind troves of evidence of both its existence and impact to the ecosystem—and whose mythos continues beyond legend to this day.

colossal.com/direwolf/
www.newscientist.com/article/2477...
tarpits.org/stories/dire...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/1694312...
www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/139018
eurekamag.com/research/005... onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

(PDF) The Dire Consequences of Specializing on Large Herbivores PDF | Niche differentiation is a way in which similar species avoid competition. Some species do this by specializing in certain prey items. This review... | Find, read and cite all the research you n...

Image Credits:
La Brea Tar Pits (3,6)
Paiaoe (8)
Citations:
www.researchgate.net/publication/...
www.researchgate.net/publication/...
www.researchgate.net/publication/...
academic.oup.com/biolinnean/a...

While initially considered a sister species to grey wolves, the dire wolf instead portrays a rich, complex story of canid evolution that we have only just begun to unravel. To learn more about dire wolves and their ecosystems, be sure to check out ecoslabrea.wixsite.com/ecos--la-brea

The preprint also suggests the Aenocyon lineage evolved via admixture between basal Caninae & South American canids, followed by later admixture with the LCA of Canis & dholes. Despite earlier hybridization, both paleogenetic studies imply no gene flow between A. dirus and Canis.

Sensationalism aside, Colossal's supporting preprint, Gedman et al. 2025, provides genuine insight into the genetic prehistory of Aenocyon. Referencing nuclear & mitochondrial paleogenomes produced a potentially constrained divergence time for the Aenocyon lineage at ~4.5 Ma.

Further discourse arose recently with Colossal Biosciences' "Dire Wolf De-Extinction Project", advertising the alleged resurrection of Aenocyon via gene-editing grey wolves to mirror fossilized genomes. This has been met with criticism by institutions such as the IUCN and LANHM.

However, the study Perri et al. (2021) overturned the consensus on dire wolf heredity. Using genomic DNA, they proposed dire wolves diverged from other canines in the Late Miocene (~5-7 Ma). Accordingly, the authors redescribed the animal under its previous title: Aenocyon dirus.

In the 1980s, paleontologist Björn Kurtén proposed two North American subspecies: C. d. dirus and C.d. guildayi based on skeletal differences. Following literature from 1988 to 2010 also suggests the existence of a South American subspecies known as "Canis (dirus) nehringi".

The dire wolf was first described in the 1850s under Canis primaevus. By the early 1900s, John C. Merriam advocated for the genus Aenocyon (Greek ainos, 'terrible' and cyon, 'dog'), which was later rejected in favor of Canis dirus, a sister species to the extant grey wolf.

Roaming from Canada to Argentina in the Mid-Late Pleistocene, dire wolves were hypercarnivores, consuming a wide range of prey from ungulates, xenarthrans, & proboscideans. Studies from La Brea suggest these large canids lived in monogamous packs with high male-male competition.

5/2 update:
-Stress: System that aims to discourage unrealistic behaviors like mix-packing & over-crowding
New skins:
-Misceo Dire Wolf, Tier 1
-Laurel Saber-tooth Cat, Tier 1

To celebrate, dive into this thread reviewing the ancestry of Dire Wolves based on recent science🐺🧬:

And here’s an extra look at the Veteran cow!

This Friday, the bison of Rancho La Brea charge into battle!

JOUSTING ⚔️ is coming to Ecos! To celebrate, we are releasing a very unique skin for the Ancient Bison; Veteran!

Veteran is a tier 4 skin priced at 3000 Tracks, unique among the roster with its cosmetic broken horn.

En garde! ⚔️ The bison of Rancho La Brea are gearing up for battle. Jousting is in development!

This Friday, show off to your Valentine with two brand new Dire Wolf skins:
🐺Acer, a tier 2 skin priced at 500
🐺Umbral, a tier 4 skin priced at 3000

YouTube video by Ecos: La Brea ECOS: LA BREA | Peccary Trailer

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HdH...

Get ready to get HOG WILD
January 25th

A mare is one of just 4 horses who survived an onslaught attack from saber toothed cats and dire wolves. Finally, she can find peace in the meadow

Ecos: La Brea

Check out our new game icon by @ivareio.bsky.social

And watch your back as a Western Horse... the takedown animation will now play when Saber-tooth Cats win the minigame!

In just a few hours, we will be adding new skins to the game!
Erythristic Saber-tooth Cat (tier 4, 3000),
Apocryphal Ancient Bison (tier 3, 1000),
and Bay Western Horse (tier 2, 500), with FREE variations Sandy Bay and Seal Bay!

Art by LithicFlakes

Happy Holidays!
From the Ecos team to all of you!

Ecos: La Brea has reached 1,000,000 visits! 🥳
Thanks to you, we reached this goal in just a few weeks! Your enthusiasm is clear, and we will keep working to improve & add to the wonderful world of La Brea.

Tomorrow, saber-toothed cat packs will display a new look! The Smilodon has received an update to make all patterns more scientifically accurate to our modern understanding of spotted cats, aswell as the addition of a new Pinyon skin!